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Braving the Forbidden City in a Wheelchairhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/05/braving-forbidden-city-wheelchair/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/05/braving-forbidden-city-wheelchair/#commentsSat, 03 May 2014 06:43:01 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=172208The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Chin describes a visit to the Forbidden City by Judith Heumann, U.S. State Department Special Advisor for International Disability Rights, to test its pre-Olympic improvements to wheelchair accessibility.

“This is actually pretty impressive. It’s better than a lot of tourist sites I’ve been to,” she said, looking out over the tourist crowds from the platform in front of the palace’s Hall of Union.

Equally striking, according to Ms. Heumann, who grew up struggling to navigate 1950s Brooklyn: how few people were making use of the pathway.

[…] Maggie Sun, a Beijing-based disability rights advocate with the NGO Handicap International who accompanied Ms. Heumann on the tour, said a culture of protectiveness hampered the ability of disabled people in China to be more independent.

[…] During the same visit to Beijing, Ms. Heumann also met with Chinese officials to lobby for changes to assist China’s disabled population. Perhaps the most important, she says, is helping cultivate a culture of independence for them through more inclusive education, the eradication of discriminatory policies and creation of more community-based services. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/05/braving-forbidden-city-wheelchair/feed/0Minitrue: “Personal Injury” at Forbidden Cityhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/10/minitrue-personal-injury-forbidden-city/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/10/minitrue-personal-injury-forbidden-city/#commentsMon, 28 Oct 2013 16:15:18 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=164607The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to these instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.”

Central Propaganda Department: Concerning the case of personal injury which occurred today at the Forbidden City, the media must report according to information issued by authoritative departments. Do not independently investigate, and do not speculate on the issue. (October 25, 2013)

CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

Lian had gone to the ear, nose and throat department looking for the doctor who treated him, but he was not there. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the head of the department instead, Xinhua said.

Lian also stabbed two other doctors before he was restrained by security guards, it added, without providing further details.

Earlier in the week, a man killed himself by jumping from a hospital building after stabbing a doctor six times in northeastern Liaoning province after a disagreement over complications from surgery on his arm.
Two doctors were also beaten up by angry family members of a patient who died in hospital in southern China’s Guangdong province. [Source]

The attacker, surnamed Zheng, and the two victims worked at the museum.

The 49-year-old man tried to commit suicide, but was apprehended and taken to a hospital, the Beijing Times said on its Sina Weibo microblog citing police sources.

The attack came after a series of stabbing attacks shocked the country and led to a ban on the sale of knives in the capital. In July, a man armed with a knife went on a rampage at a Carrefour shopping centre, in Beijing’s western district, killing one and wounding at least four people. Days earlier, another man stabbed two people, including an American woman, to death, in the city. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/10/knife-violence-lea/feed/0Auction Houses in China: Christie’s vs. PLAhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/09/auction-houses-china-christies-vs-pla/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/09/auction-houses-china-christies-vs-pla/#commentsSat, 28 Sep 2013 17:53:16 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=163397Licensed to operate in mainland China earlier this year, the auction house Christie’s has found a rather large market for art and luxury goods in China. From John Ruwitch, Jiang Xihao and Adam Jourdan at Reuters:

(Reuters) – Christie’s sold $25 million worth of art, jewelry, watches and wine on Thursday at its first auction in China, as it became the latest international auction house to operate on the mainland.

[…] “Interest from Chinese buyers was very strong, with international bidders on the phone and online all coming together,” Christie’s CEO Steven Murphy told a news conference after the auction in central Shanghai. [Source]

The foreigners must keep their wits about them. The power of incumbents is one challenge. Although China has about 6,000 galleries, the market is dominated by 44 licensed auction houses (out of 300 in total), which control perhaps 70% of sales of art and antiquities. Cai Jinqing, head of Christie’s in China, says her firm plans to take them on with its depth of knowledge (it offered expert art lectures before this week’s auction), innovation (it does online art auctions) and its trusted global brand.

Zhao Xu, the boss of Poly International, a giant auction firm owned by a conglomerate controlled by the army, is supremely confident that the arrival of foreign rivals “will change little”. He argues that the newcomers have no competitive advantages inside China. As an example, he points to local firms’ vast experience selling Chinese paintings and calligraphy, which made up roughly half the value of all items auctioned last year.

Not only will the foreign auctioneers have to do battle with an offshoot of the mighty People’s Liberation Army, they will have to operate in a market that is distorted by a mix of under- and overregulation, lack of openness and outright crookedness. One barrier is high taxes and a heavy-handed system of permits. Another problem is the prevalence of counterfeits. Several experts insist that some artists also work in cahoots with galleries, big auctioneers and even property developers to rig auctions. Though less common since the market correction last year, an insider says such practices still abound: “it happens in the West too, except in China we do it with more enthusiasm.” [Source]

The Summer Palace, a secondary imperial residence located on the outskirts of Beijing, was in the news this year after a portion of a marble pillar had been discovered stolen. While officials at the Summer Palace were keen to keep the disappearance under wraps, last February a user of a Chinese microblogging platform posted a series of photos showing a gaping hole in one of the antique marble balustrades.

Soon after, the commercial media reported the story, and the whole scandal came out into the open. The missing artifact—a 20-inch-tall hunk of white marble weighing about 110 pounds—was part of 60 similar pillars delicately carved with dragon and cloud motifs, most likely produced in the 18th century, in the glory days of the Qing dynasty. A press release from the Summer Palace later acknowledged the disappearance, adding that the missing pillar would be “replaced with the same material soon” and that it was “probably carved in the late Qing dynasty,” in the 19th century, and not all that precious—once again irking conservationists and the public alike. [Source]

The capital will take 180,000 old vehicles off the road and promote clean energy autos among government departments, the public and the urban cleaning sector, which includes street cleaners and trash collectors, Wang Anshun said at the opening of a session of the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress, the municipal legislature.

The heating systems of 44,000 old, single-story homes and coal-burning boilers downtown are to be replaced with clean energy, Wang said as he delivered a government work report.

The city will also speed up the promotion of clean energy in rural areas and strictly control dust in construction projects, said Wang.

He vowed to strengthen air quality monitoring and analysis, as well as the release of such information.

In another sign that Beijing officials are, for now, leaning toward openness, officials will allow the city’s 20 million residents to weigh in on draft regulations aimed at curbing the Chinese capital’s horrendous air pollution, according to a notice posted Jan. 20 on the Beijing municipal government website. The public can comment on the proposed new measures until Feb. 8, the day before China shuts down for the annual Chinese New Year festival, said the statement issued by the city’s legal affairs office.

“This is important. Now public scrutiny should play a key role in promoting pollution control and enforcement of this rule,” says Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. Ma’s environmental advocacy group plans to comment through the online platform that the municipal government has created for this purpose.

Zhang Yuanxun, a professor of resources and environment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that a lack of law enforcement will be a problem.

“The punishments enshrined in the regulations are too strict and broad. It will require many more law enforcement officers to ensure its effective implementation,” he said.

“The old laws were not enforced, not to mention this new one,” he said.

[…] “Also, just restricting the local atmospheric pollution would have little contribution to its improvement if there are no changes in the pollution conditions in the surrounding areas [of Beijing],” [Zhou Rong, climate and energy director of Greenpeace] said.

Wang Yan, a resident working in international trade, said she thinks the new laws should have been launched already.

“I don’t think I’ll offer comments on the new regulation since I doubt if my voice will be heard,” she said, adding targeting street barbecues is ridiculous.

Green roofs – roofs covered with plant vegetation – first gained popularity in Germany and have since been spreading around the world. They help cities reduce storm water runoff, cool the urban environment, absorb air pollution, insulate buildings and increase biodiversity. With enough green roof adoption, Beijing could realise positive impacts on the environment and improved quality of life.

My research on the topic found that in Beijing there is around 93 million square metres of roof space suitable for cost effective green roof adoption. If the cheapest and most basic forms of green roofs covered the suitable roof space, the urban environment would be substantially improved.

Under this scenario air particle pollution could be reduced by as much as 880,000 kilograms every year, equivalent to taking 730,000 cars off the road. The roofs could reduce storm water by 3.5 million cubic metres during large rain events, equivalent to filling the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square with two metres of water or 1,400 Olympic swimming pools.

Deborah Seligsohn, an expert on China’s environment at the University of California, San Diego, said that there is no silver bullet for the country’s air pollution. The underlying causes are dynamic and diverse: power plants, small factories, automobile emissions, rampant construction, farmers burning coal for heat. “One of the things about the air quality in Beijing is that it varies a lot more than it used to,” she said.

Beijing’s air quality fluctuates with the weather – a strong wind from the north can blow the smog to sea, she said, while south-eastern winds trap the air against a nearby mountain range, drowning the city in a pea-soup haze.

[…] Beijing has taken significant steps to combat pollution – it invested an estimated $10bn before the 2008 Olympics to raise emissions standards, replace residents’ coal stoves with natural gas heaters, and relocate a ring of steel plants on the city’s outskirts. Yet Beijing still shares its airspace with six surrounding provinces which may not adhere to comparable environmental standards.

“One of the fundamental problems is that the environmental regulators don’t have sufficient authority and resources to overcome the forces that are creating the pollution,” said Alex Wang, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an expert on China’s environmental law.

[… B]y far my favorite innovation Shanghai’s EPB has made so far is in the use of this little air quality mascot to communicate what the various levels of pollution on the normalized AQI index mean. For the most part, things take a sour turn for AQI girl (let’s just call her that, I’m not sure if she has an official name) after the Good (51-100) part of the range. I like how they coordinated her hair color with the official color codes of different pollutant thresholds – it’s a great way for people to automatically remember and understand what the different colors mean. AQI girl also provides a much more people and user-friendly means to calculate air quality, as opposed to other cartoon characters or anime figures that they could gone with.

[…] I can only imagine next will come a video game for AQI girl, that will feature her navigating Shanghai’s polluted streets, having to dodge roadside exhaust coming from tailpipes, all the while remembering to wear her face mask when she sees AQI readings above 150.

Over the long term, drawing down emissions will require costly upgrades to industrial facilities and oil refineries, measures resisted by state-owned companies unable to pass costs on to consumers and local governments that depend on industrial output for revenue.

[…] Though attention over the years has focused on power plants and passenger-car emissions, China’s pollution problems are complex and spread broadly across the economy. Mr. Zhao, of Nanjing University, and a research team studied the effectiveness of Chinese government policies in curbing emissions between 2005 and 2010 and estimated PM2.5 from coal-fired power generation fell roughly 21% as cleaner technologies took hold. Meanwhile, PM2.5 emissions from iron and steel production rose roughly 39% to 2.2 million metric tons, according to the estimates, as output increased.

China is particularly struggling to curb what are known as secondary pollutants, formed when primary pollutants—such as emitted sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, from coal burning and other sources—undergo reactions in the atmosphere. The government has had some success targeting primary pollutants, but analysts say it is just beginning to target secondary pollutant problems, including particulate matter that is harmful to human health.

Spegele also discussed a range of air pollution issues with the Journal’s Deborah Kan:

“I would not call the past 40 years’ efforts of environmental protection a total failure,” he said. “But I have to admit that governments have done far from enough to rein in the wild pursuit of economic growth … and failed to avoid some of the worst pollution scenarios we, as policymakers, had predicted.”

[…] But, Qu said, if the central government had respected a policy that it released in 1983, China could be in a much better place now.

“The State Council published a document that year, stipulating that economic and urban construction should synchronise with environmental protection, so that the three legs of social development could reach a co-ordinated benefit,” he said. “It was a pragmatic and feasible strategy, even more approachable than the notion of ‘sustainable development’ enshrined by the United Nations years later.”

[…] “Why was the strategy never properly implemented?” he said. “I think it is because there was no supervision of governments. It is because the power is still above the law.”

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/01/soes-rule-of-law-among-hurdles-for-clean-air-push/feed/0China Asks: What's Eating the Forbidden City?http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/08/china-asks-whats-eating-the-forbidden-city-2/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/08/china-asks-whats-eating-the-forbidden-city-2/#commentsFri, 12 Aug 2011 07:42:14 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=123203Caixin reports on the mounting structural disrepair of the Palace Museum and the mismanagement that may be to blame.

A sense of dignified peace is what most visitors take away from China’s 600-year-old royal palace, the Forbidden City, in the heart of Beijing.

But reputations at this stately complex of red walls and dragon-scale roofs, officially called the Palace Museum, have been tarnished in recent months by undignified and culturally painful management mistakes.

Government-appointed officials who run the museum amplified the damage by failing to respond quickly – or not at all – to public questions about stolen and broken valuables, special favors for the rich, and swarming termites.

The wave of blunders began May 8 when a lone burglar slipped past the museum’s supposedly impenetrable alarm and camera systems and snatched valuable cosmetic cases and purses on loan from the Liang Yi Collection in Hong Kong. The thief apparently scaled a 10-meter wall and escaped a security guard’s custody.

One the heels of that gaffe, rumors spread on the Internet that the museum’s newly renovated Jianfu Palace, usually closed to the public, was being used for gatherings of an exclusive club’s ultra-wealthy members.

Perhaps even more mortifying for museum managers was a July 30 microblog posting that quickly went viral with claims that a precious Song Dynasty porcelain plate had been broken during a routine procedure, and the loss had been covered up by museum officials.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/08/china-asks-whats-eating-the-forbidden-city-2/feed/0Man Arrested over Forbidden City Break-inhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/05/man-arrested-over-forbidden-city-break-in/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/05/man-arrested-over-forbidden-city-break-in/#commentsThu, 12 May 2011 06:09:38 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=121017When a number of precious objects on loan from a Hong Kong collector were stolen from the Forbidden City, the art world was taken by surprise that artwork in Beijing’s major museum weren’t more carefully guarded.Today Beijing authorities say they have apprehended a suspect and recovered some of the objects. From the Guardian:

It was the first theft in 20 years from the historic site, the tourist attraction’s spokesman Feng Nai’en said, adding that security would be increased.

An investigation found that nine pieces all small Western-style gold purses and mirrored compacts covered with jewels made in the 20th century were missing from the temporary exhibition, on loan from the private Liang Yi Museum in Hong Kong.

Two of the missing items were recovered nearby shortly after the theft and were slightly damaged.

State media said on Thursday that police had caught a man called Shi Bokui in an Internet cafe Wednesday night who confessed to the robbery. The China Daily said some of the seven remaining stolen pieces were recovered, but did not give details.

Feng said Wednesday the entire Palace Museum will be checked to see if any other items are missing.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/02/documentary-discovery-7-wonders-of-china/feed/1Tempest in a Coffee Cup – Tim Johnsonhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/10/tempest-in-a-coffee-cup-tim-johnson/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/10/tempest-in-a-coffee-cup-tim-johnson/#commentsThu, 11 Oct 2007 04:25:54 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/10/10/tempest-in-a-coffee-cup-tim-johnson/China Rises and Shanghaiist blogs both discuss the new coffee shop that has replaced Starbucks in the Forbidden City, after the presence of Starbucks raised the hackles of a TV host and numerous bloggers. They also included a photo of the former Starbucks’ current look in the Forbidden City. For a more in-depth look at this touchy issue, see CDT’s previous translation: “Starbuck Leaves, the Forbidden City Cafe Arrives.”

The Forbidden City‘s Jiuqing Chaofang has once again been connected to coffee, as a new cafe has opened at the former site of Starbucks cafe.]]>
From Hong Wang, translated by CDT:

The Forbidden City‘s Jiuqing Chaofang has once again been connected to coffee, as a new cafe has opened at the former site of Starbucks cafe. Seven years ago, when the American Starbucks company opened its coffee shop here, Jiuqing Chaofang became famous. Two months after Starbucks left, the Forbidden City quietly opened its own cafe.

Starbucks coffee shop is gone, the Forbidden City cafe arrives. The glorious Forbidden City is just yesterday’s palace. The cultural complex witnessed the historical origins of the Chinese nation by the rejuvenation of the whole process — this process is the national culture’s beautiful turnaround from rejecting foreign culture to accepting it. Thus, today’s Forbidden City retains the harmony of both the Chinese snuff and the western clock. Earlier, the CCTV anchor Rui Chenggang blogged and protested the existence of Starbucks in the Forbidden City. The whole event raised a hot discussion in China, and even attracted the attention of foreign media. Rui’s point is that he found opening a cafe in the Forbidden City to be in serious conflict with the totem significance of the museum. However, when we just focused on Starbucks while avoiding the conflict between traditional cultural and commercial symbols, the logical basis of the movement to expel the Starbucks became pale and fragile.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/09/starbuck-leaves-the-forbidden-city-cafe-arrives-deng-haijian/feed/0Video: Painting and Calligraphy in Chinese Imperial Palacehttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/09/video-painting-and-calligraphy-in-chinese-imperial-palace/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/09/video-painting-and-calligraphy-in-chinese-imperial-palace/#commentsWed, 19 Sep 2007 20:56:30 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/09/19/video-painting-and-calligraphy-in-chinese-imperial-palace/Youtube carries a series of explanatory videos of painting and calligraphy, which “are the most vivid visual record of Chinese traditional civilization and national spirit.”

Starbucks closed its store in Beijing’s Forbidden City today after months of controversy over the U.S. coffee-shop chain doing business there. The decision followed the Forbidden City’s announcement that it wants to operate all stores inside the former imperial palace, which is now a museum.

“We have respectfully decided to end our lease agreement,” the Seattle coffee chain said. Wang Jinlong, president of Starbucks Greater China, said in a written statement: “We fully respect the decision of Forbidden City to transition to a new mode of concessions service to its museum visitors.”[Full Text]

A member of China’s parliament has demanded the immediate closure of a Starbucks coffee shop set up inside Beijing’s Forbidden City, the Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

Two months after a television host launched an online campaign to evict Starbucks Corp. from the former home of Chinese emperors, the seven-year-old store has had its logo removed but otherwise it’s business as usual, the agency said…

In response to the online boycott, the Palace Museum management had promised to seek a solution with Starbucks by the end of June, Xinhua said. The rent paid by Starbucks is used for maintenance of the palace, it added, citing museum. [Full Text]

Starbucks could be banished from Beijing’s fabled Forbidden City amid complaints that the presence of the ubiquitous US coffee shop chain in the former imperial palace constitutes an “affront to Chinese culture”.

China’s official media said on Thursday that a low-key Starbucks outlet near the rear of the sprawling Palace Museum site might be removed following online protests sparked by a patriotic polemic published by a TV anchorman on his personal blog.

The controversy surrounding Starbucks’ presence in the Forbidden City highlights the risks to foreign companies of offending Chinese nationalist sentiment.

State media said this week that a Russian TV commercial for Wrigley’s chewing gum that used China’s national anthem had “harmed the dignity” of the country, upset internet users and caused a drop in sales in at least one Chinese city. [Full Text]